(a) Field
Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to a liquid crystal display. More specifically, embodiments of the present invention relate to a liquid crystal display having improved transmittance and luminance characteristics.
(b) Description of the Related Art
A liquid crystal display is one popular form of flat panel display device that typically includes two display panels where field generating electrodes such as a pixel electrode and a common electrode are formed, with a liquid crystal layer interposed therebetween.
The liquid crystal display generates an electric field in the liquid crystal layer by applying voltages to the field generating electrodes, to determine orientations of liquid crystal molecules of the liquid crystal layer and to control polarization of incident light, thereby displaying an image.
The liquid crystal display includes switching elements each connected to pixel electrodes, and a plurality of signal lines such as data lines and gate lines for applying voltages to the pixel electrodes by controlling the switching elements.
Among these LCDs, a vertical alignment mode LCD, which arranges major axes of liquid crystal molecules so as to be perpendicular to the display panel when an electric field is not applied, has been widely used due to its high contrast ratio and wide reference viewing angle.
In order to approximately match side visibility to that of front visibility in the vertical alignment mode LCD, a method of causing a difference in transmittance by dividing one pixel into two sub-pixels and applying different voltages to the two sub-pixels has been suggested.
However, when dividing one pixel into two subpixels and approximating the side visibility to the front visibility by differentiating the transmittance, the luminance is increased at a low gray or high gray such that gray expression is difficult at the sides, thereby deteriorating display quality.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.